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In a world where "right and wrong" often seem hard to define, what's important to think about with regards to homosexuality and sexual orientation?
In a world where "right and wrong" often seem hard to define, what's important to think about with regards to homosexuality and sexual orientation?
Through the years as I've visited with people about their thoughts about sexual orientation and the church, one thing has struck me over and over. Often our feelings about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality are deeply influenced by our earliest personal experience with someone we identified as being gay. If that experience was a positive one, most of us tend to favor inclusion of gay people in the life of the church and society. If that experience was a negative one, full inclusion can feel like a threatening prospect. That's not universal, but it has been true for me.
I grew up inheriting the values of my Mississippi upbringing. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" was a moderately benevolent way of understanding that sexual intimacy was only appropriate between a married man and woman. From my childhood into early adulthood, I never really knew someone who was gay.
The first openly gay person I ever met was a priest from the diocese of New York who visited with our first-year seminary class. John told his rather compelling story of trying to be like other people at the cost of being himself. During the discussion period that followed his talk, I pointed my finger at him as I remonstrated, "But don't you know, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit." I'll never forget the next few seconds. John looked straight at me with very clear eyes, and with a voice of absolute conviction he said, "YES! My body IS the temple of the Holy Spirit." His response was a complete anomaly to me. Little did I know he had started an earthquake inside me.
I held my own in the subsequent student bull sessions. But something about the integrity of his answer stuck with me. It was about nine months later when I was working for the summer in a hospital clinical training program that things shifted mightily for me. I was with a group of seven other seminarians doing pastoral work in the hospital and participating in morning seminars to foster our skills. It was a remarkably talented group. I felt privileged to be with them. As we progressed, one person emerged as a natural leader and pastor. Tim had wisdom, theological grounding and a pastor's spirit. He was the kind of person I would want for my priest and earned our respect as probably the most gifted among us.
About five weeks into the summer, we walked into the hospital one Monday morning. Tim's receding hairline shone with a new sunburn. The New York Gay Pride parade had walked Fifth Avenue that weekend, so we joked him, "Where'd you get the burn? Marching down Fifth Avenue?" With a gentle grin he shook his shoulders, "Why, yes." We stopped in our tracks, mouths dropping. "You're not..." "As a matter of fact, I am."
For the next six weeks Tim gave us a great gift. He let us ask him every stupid question a bunch of straight guys could ever want to ask. Our supervisor let us do some serious study about sexuality and homosexuality. Our minds were changed.
Among us, different people found different kinds of new information important to us. It was important to me to learn that sexual orientation is not a choice. There is evidence pointing to a genetic origin; there is some other evidence of environmental influences. But science was pretty clear that our sexual orientation is set at an early age, before age three. The other information that seemed important to me at the time was evidence that gay people are just as sane and normal (or crazy) as the general population. They are not somehow inferior, immature, or unfinished.
My friend from Pennsylvania couldn't care less about the science. The important point for him was looking at the scripture again and seeing that there is nothing that truly addresses sexual orientation, but that there are major Biblical themes about liberation from bondage and about faithfulness in relationships. My friend from Maine said none of that stuff was what mattered. He believed in Tim. Tim was authentic; Tim was good; Tim was a holy person. That was enough for him. All of us came to the same conclusion traveling down different paths -- gay and lesbian people should be held to the same ethical standards as the rest of us and should be fully included in the life of the church and society.
I feel lucky that the first two people I met whom I could identify as being gay or lesbian were fine people whom I respected. That influenced the process of my reflection on my inherited beliefs. I also feel fortunate that I was able to carry out that process of discovery in an open, patient environment.
Would I feel the same if my first experience had been a traumatic or frightening one? I don't know. We all bring our experience to our judgment. I do hope for all of my friends the opportunity to know people like John and Tim and the chance to be in an open, patient environment to think about community and our relationships.
 The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
Rector, St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR
Lowell is a native of Mississippi. He grew up in Oxford and went to college at the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1972. He worked in University administration for several years before going to law school. He left law school to enter seminary in 1976 graduating from the General Theological Seminary in 1980. He has served parishes in Mississippi and Arkansas, coming to St. Paul's, Fayetteville in 1997.
Growing up in Mississippi in the days of the struggle for Civil Rights made a big impact on Lowell. He feels strongly about the need for tolerance in a diverse society. He has special interests in congregational development and in contemplative prayer. He is a member of the Order of the Ascension and teaches with the Congregational Development Institute. He and his wife Kathy were married in 1975 and have two children, one married and the other in
college.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
224 N. East
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Phone: (479) 442-7373
Fax: (479) 442-7375
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www.stpaulsfay.org
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